VALLEY TRAFFIC FIX IN LIMBO; NO MORE HOPE FOR RESEDA ROUTE.

Byline: Eric Moses Daily News Staff Writer

When Lori Kelson moved to Encino Hills two decades ago, she looked forward to panoramic views, not lines of cars using her street as a shortcut from the Valley to Mulholland Drive and the San Diego Freeway.

It gets noticeably worse when mudslides close Pacific Coast Highway, Topanga Canyon Boulevard or Malibu Canyon Road, forcing more motorists onto the Ventura and San Diego freeways and hillside streets.

This isn't just Encino's problem. Whenever even a small section of Los Angeles' commuting network is crippled or closed, traffic on the San Fernando Valley's already busy freeways and streets gets even worse.

``I can't tell you how backed-up the streets are when PCH is blocked,'' Kelson said. On most mornings, traffic is so bad she can't get out of her driveway.

Traffic experts say another route through the Santa Monica Mountains would relieve the problem. But less than half of the 1,379-mile freeway system envisioned in the 1950s was ever built, and no major additions are planned. What would have been called the Reseda Freeway was one of the thoroughfares that never came to be.

And now the city of Los Angeles is about to give up its rights to extending Reseda Boulevard, effectively scrapping any chance of resurrecting plans to run a major route through the mountains between Ventura Boulevard and the 405 Freeway. The plan was to extend Reseda Boulevard to Mulholland Drive, which then connects to the 405.

Should the Reseda Boulevard extension plan die - and a spokesman for Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski says it will - there will be no more possibilities for another road to connect the Valley with the rest of Los Angeles.

``I'm not aware of us having any route planned,'' said Allen Willis, a senior engineer at the city Transportation Department's West Los Angeles/Valley Programs Division. ``There are some lines on the maps, but the possibility of them being realized (is) remote to nonexistent of that happening.''

Similarly, no routes are included in the Southern California Association of Governments' 20-year regional transportation plan for Los Angeles and surrounding counties.

Bob Poole, a former California Transportation Commission member and now a transportation analyst, said new routes are needed to relieve the ``real horrendous bottlenecks'' in the few bridges across the mountains.

``So, improving the circulation of the overall highway system in L.A. - particularly to connect the Valley better - would be an excellent idea and is one of the the highest-priority needs of our transportation system,'' said Poole, president of the Reason Foundation, a West Los Angeles public policy think tank.

PCH the problem

Miscikowski believes the Valley's traffic problems are seasonal and can be solved by making sure the hillsides above Pacific Coast Highway don't slough off during the rains.

``I think Caltrans engineers should analyze what PCH needs,'' she said. ``But because of the problems from El Nino, I don't think we need to look at building other roads. It is a temporary thing.''

Miscikowski added that building the road across the ``treacherous'' mountain terrain to the sea would rival the cost of building a subway in Los Angeles.

Typically, Caltrans needs a day or two to clear the rocks and mud from PCH. The most recent closure, however, kept all or part of the highway between Las Flores Road and Topanga Canyon Boulevard closed from March 24 to April 4.

During those 11 days, the thousands of drivers who regularly traverse Malibu Canyon and Kanan Dune roads to PCH joined those on the already congested 101 Freeway and Ventura Boulevard. Ultimately, they added to the gridlock traffic squeezing through the 101-405 freeway interchange.

Some of them found shortcuts through Encino Hills, a community nestled in the mountains south of Ventura Boulevard, with the Encino Reservoir on the west and the 405 on the east.

``There are routes through the hills that a lot of people know about, with a lot of twists and turns and stop signs but without touching a major street,'' Kelson said.

Extending Reseda

During the 1980s as a member of the Encino Hills Traffic Safety Organization, Kelson tried to get the city to follow through on a plan to extend Reseda Boulevard to Mulholland Drive.

In 1990, as the city was considering what to do with the extension proposal, Encino Hills residents complained to Councilman Marvin Braude about the heavy traffic on their steep and narrow streets.

A subsequent city Transportation Department study of the traffic patterns during the morning commute in the neighborhood found that 1,004 cars per hour used Calneva Drive to get to Mulholland Drive, and 475 per hour took Royal Hills Drive to get to southbound Sepulveda Boulevard.

Further, the city's review of license-plate numbers found that 69 percent of those cars came from outside Encino Hills, and as many as 15 percent of those trips originated far enough away that the drivers probably used a freeway before cutting through, the study found.

Although the 1990 report has not been updated, a city transit engineer said the figures are still valid.

To eliminate the problem, engineers suggested closing parts of Calneva and Royal Hills, converting some streets to one-way traffic, barring traffic on some streets during peak hours, implementing turn restrictions and putting in more stop signs and speed bumps. But all were rejected as being too restrictive for those who lived there.

Reseda plan scrapped

The expected death knell for the Reseda Boulevard extension comes more than five years after the council officially scrapped the Reseda-to-the-sea proposal at Braude's urging. That road would have connected the Valley with Pacific Palisades.

Braude said the road would damage the state parkland south of Braemar Country Club and would be too costly to build.

That left the city with the smaller Reseda-to-Mulholland project, which consisted of extending Reseda 650 feet and paving ``dirt Mulholland'' to Encino Hills Drive, where it would hook up with Mulholland Drive.

But with the Reseda extension virtually dead, residents expect the traffic to get much worse.

A new development of luxury homes near where Reseda ends and the massive Ahmanson Ranch project on the Los Angeles-Ventura county border will only increase traffic on the freeways - and ultimately in Encino Hills if no new roads are built, residents say.

Encino Hills resident Margery Grossman believes an additional road through the mountains is a matter of safety. Such a route would give firefighters quicker access to brush fires and provide another way around the 101-405 interchange should it be closed by an earthquake or flood.

``If you have Reseda,'' Grossman said, ``then you have a possibility and a shot of getting the hell out of the Valley if you have to.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Map

PHOTO The extension plan for Reseda Boulevard, which now ends at the Santa Monica Mountains, is about to be abandoned by city officials.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News

MAP: Proposed road

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